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Finger Lakes New York – part 5, Seneca Lake

What a day it was, action packed to such a degree that I have run out of time.

I visited some wineries in a tight area around Seneca Lake, which at almost 650 feet is the deepest of the Finger Lakes. As a consequence the conditions are that little bit warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, as the water below the surface stays pretty much the same temperature all year round.

This enables the growers around here to put a greater emphasise on red varietals than their neighbours around the other Finger Lakes, as long as the vines can actually see the water, these conditions are very localised. So, I was able to taste a couple of really fascinating examples of Cabernet Sauvignon blends as well as the local signature grape, Cabernet Franc and the newly emerging local star – Lemburger/Blaufrankish.

The best wines, to my mind continue to be the whites, especially the Rieslings and I tasted some terrific examples – they tend to be a little richer and softer than German, Alsace or Austrian Rieslings, which is great as they seem to have something of their own style over here and the grape really suits the conditions.

My stand out wines of the day were:

2008 Tierce Dry RieslingTierce is made as a joint venture by three local wineries as a joint project: Fox Run, Anthony Road & Red Newt.
Stony and limey with some richer feel bringing an apricot quality – this makes it softer and richer than I expected.
It has a nice clean cut of mandarin acidity and a slightly oily texture to the palate leading to a rich acidic citrus texture to the finish, very interesting and very good and also amongst the driest of the local Rieslings – 90/100.

This was a lovely, unassuming red from the lovely Lamoreaux Landing estate which is the winery created by Mark Wagner, whose family also own the neighbouring Wagner Winery, which is one of the pioneers of the region.

The colour was a pale translucent light red cherry colour.
The nose offered a lovely waft of red cherry and rose hip syrup, together with a slight touch of earthy notes.
The palate was soft, juicy and very pleasurable with good balance and real delicacy.
Very nice to drink, soft tannins and a touch of acidity keeping it bright – nice texture with red fruit, it would be lovely chilled as a big rosé too- 87/100.

Anyway that is all I have time for right now as another day beckons – remember, if you want to follow my journey you can refer to my piece about the region here, Uncork New York and my two maps – New York’s wine regions and the Finger Lakes region. Check back for more soon

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Welcome to my Wine Page

I’m Quentin Sadler, a wine educator
and consultant. I run wine classes
and courses, I train people in the
wine business, dabble in wine
writing and write technical and
commercial articles, back-labels
and wine lists for my wine trade
customers.

I also travel widely,
tasting wine and experiencing wine
regions and wineries. From time to
time I have things that I want to
share with you. In these pages I will
mention wines, wine events, trips
that I make as well as details of
restaurants and meals that I have
enjoyed or anything about wine, food and travel that strikes me as interesting.
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